Thin Places
by Manny PenPen
Summary: As a young mushishi, Ginko has a very unusual encounter. One-shot, complete.


Ginko is not unfamiliar with the thin places of the world. He's barely a mushi-shi, fourteen by only the most generous ways of counting, but his head is filled with a lifetime of lore. The records tell of fissures that lead half-way across the country, mushi-trails marked only by the brief luminescence of their passing, forests much bigger on the inside than should be physically possible. He's even walked a few of those paths himself, though he wasn't a mushi-shi then. So when a nearby village contacts him, saying that people have gone missing deep in the woods, he's not surprised. Instead, he hears them out in his usual, quiet way, and then goes looking.

The forest would be dark even on a sunny day. It's filled with giant tree after giant tree, their branches intertwining invisibly somewhere far above his head. Earlier in the day, before the rain set in, there had been a few threadbare sunbeams straggling down to his level; now there's only the occasional drip of rain on the leaves … and a whole lot of mud. He lost one sandal a long way back. His kimono isn't faring much better, either. Threadbare as it is, there's not much value to be lost if he completely ruins it here, but it's also the only clothing he has.

The mud squelches around his bare foot. Other than the sound of his own movement, however, the forest is completely silent. Even the mushi seem to have gone quiet here, save for the occasional tangle of brightly colored lights floating high overhead. Strange. He's not entirely sure what to expect, but he's certain there should be more mushi rather than less. Perhaps it's time to check one of the scrolls. Wiping his face with one muddy arm, he trudges towards the shelter of an upturned tree stump. The mud here is extra thick; the box on his back is still a little too heavy for him, and it unbalances him badly. He scrabbles for a decent foothold --

In the next moment, Ginko's feet touch solid hardwood floor. He gets approximately one second to right himself before he slips anyway and ends up flat on his box, all the breath knocked out of him. "O-ow," he mumbles, struggling to sit up. Somehow, he is lying on the outside porch of a Japanese-style home. Cicadas chirp nearby, and the air is thick both with humidity and the last rays of the setting sun. He rolls onto his side with a groan.

"Getting my porch all dirty, are we?"

Ginko's head jerks up. In front of him is a beautiful woman. Human, probably -- she doesn't have the look of a mushi about her, even her floaty, violet-colored kimono and wine-red eyes -- and yet more than human. Young, and yet with the aching capacity to be much, much older. She smiles at him, and it's more than a little dangerous. "I'm -- I'm just looking," he says first, wiping at his face with a muddy sleeve. Then he remembers _why_ he came here in the first place. "Did anyone else come through here?"

Another secretive smile. The woman turns, her kimono swishing as it trails against the hardwood floor. "Come inside," she says, sliding open one of the porch doors. "The buzzing is worse when you're here."

Awkwardly, Ginko gets to his feet; he leaves muddy footprints behind him as he walks into the house. "They sound…" _Normal_, he was going to say, but the building he just entered is anything but. A delicately carved wooden table sits in the middle of the room, with a giant lounging sort of couch resting beneath a great big tapestry of the moon. He can feel the residual energy involved here. The woman is powerful, and she keeps powerful company. It would be enough to make a full-grown mushishi feel small; Ginko feels absolutely _tiny_ in comparison.

"Hmm?" The woman lowers herself onto the couch and stretches. Her limbs seem impossibly long. "You can sit down, you know."

With the soft _clunk_ of his box hitting the floor, Ginko does so. He tries to sit completely on the floor pillow, at least, to avoid getting mud all over the tatami. "… where is this?" he asks at last. "Where am I?"

The woman pulls out a long pipe. When she lights it, the smoke curls thickly around her. "It will be a shop," she says, and he can't tell if she sounds faintly regretful or just sad. "But for the moment, it is my home."

"Your home," repeats Ginko, quietly. "Then you'd know if a little girl came through here."

"I would." She breathes in a lungful of smoke, then gives him another smile. It's almost teasing. "That sort of information is valuable, Ginko."

_Valuable?_ Ginko has to think quickly. Money isn't something he often has with him, even when he's just gotten paid by someone; any offerings made to mushi require something entirely different. Even so … The tiny mushishi pulls his aching arms out of the straps of his box and turns it, so that he can easily go through the drawers. He doesn't notice the small, almost surprised look on the woman's face when he draws out a small sake bottle with a matching (but incredibly simple) cup. Earthenware, poor quality, with red clay streak around the rim. "I can pay. It's very good wine," he adds, when she doesn't respond immediately. "We call it _kouki_."

"The 'light wine.'"

Ginko blinks. "Ah? You know it?"

"I do." The woman sits up languidly. Somehow, her mysterious smile has changed again: less ache and more fondness. "And I have the information you seek."

The boy thinks for a moment. Then he carefully pours a small amount of _kouki_ into the cup, up to the red streak at its brim. It glitters in the last light of the sunset. "Then -- if you could tell me --"

"I have the information," repeats the woman, waving away a handful of smoke, "but it will not help you. The others have moved on already, and the girl … will be a great fortune teller."

Ginko opens his mouth to thank her anyway. Then he pauses as the meaning of the woman's sentence sinks in. "Where?" he says. "… here?"

"In this world. So while your offer is appreciated," she says, "it isn't required. Yet." And she smiles that aching sort of smile he saw on her a few minutes ago. "As I said, this isn't a shop yet."

_That still doesn't seem fair_, he thinks. He shifts a little, trying not to feel absolutely filthy with his soiled kimono and muddied face. He can hear a windchime in the distance. "I … I'll still pay," he says after a long moment. "Because I can tell her family that she'll be all right."

For a moment, he thinks he's offended her. Then her face breaks into a grin that is nothing short of ridiculous. "Well then," she says, taking the cup in both hands. "I'll just have to help myself~" And she downs the whole thing in one long sip.

Ginko can't help but stare; the last time he saw someone do that, they ended up hallucinating for most of the week. "Um … " He makes a quick mental calculation, then gets to his feet and leans over the table, pouring her another cup. He's not sure he can spare a third.

Fortunately, she seems pleased enough. The second cup goes much slower, in long, thoughtful, savoring sips. "You should take a bath," she says, apropos of nothing except what is surely a _very_ drunken smile. "If you do that, I'll forgive you for tracking mud into the house." She claps her hands and a pair of tiny girls appear. They immediately latch onto his arms, tugging him to his feet before he has a chance to protest. "Go on, take Ginko to the bath," she says. "I'll take care of the wine~"

"But --"

"Ginko is going to take a bath!" chirps one.

"Bath is going to be taken by Ginko!" says the other.

And together they drag him deep into the house-that-is-not-yet-a-shop, leaving only muddy footprints behind them.

---

By the time Ginko escapes his bath, it's completely dark out. He towels at his head vigorously, trying to scrub out the last bits of pink still clinging to the tips of his hair. The girls had gotten very creative with both the hair soap -- what had they called it? shampoo? -- and the very mysterious (very pink) substance known as bubble bath. Ginko suspects that he'll smell like plumeria for the rest of his life.

When he steps back out into the bathroom proper, he can't find his kimono. He panics for a moment, having visions of walking back to his own world in nothing but a towel, then spots a small parcel in the corner. _Clothes?_ he thinks, taking the package and sitting down with it. He's expecting his own kimono, mysteriously cleaned perhaps, or at least folded; what he gets, however, is something much stranger. A crisp white … thing, presumably for his upper body, with tiny clear buttons up the middle. Dark pants as well, though they're not anything like _hakama_ or even the festival wear that he occasionally sees while wandering through Japan. A few heavier articles of clothing round out the package, but they're far too hot to wear right now.

Ginko wants his kimono back. But he can't exactly walk back into the main room with nothing but a towel, so he slips the shirt on. It's comfortable, if terribly big on him; it ends somewhere just above his knees. The pants, too, seem to swallow him, but somehow they manage to fit nonetheless. He tries not to think about it too much. Instead, he folds the rest of the clothes over one arm and pads back into the main room.

Yuuko (the girls' name for her) is not alone. There is a man with her, and they are laughing together over some drawing the man has put together. "They look like meatbuns," she says. "Ah, one day I'll hire a cook to make me something like that~"

The man is more serene somehow, despite his laughter. He wears glasses and his hair trails down his back in one slim ponytail. His robes seem foreign -- beautifully so, deep blue and patterned with astrological symbols -- but he wears a terrible ordinary-looking green coat over the top of it, despite the summer heat. "You don't like them?" he says. "I was very faithful to the original design."

"I never said I didn't like them." She looks as though she wants to say more; instead, she turns to look directly at Ginko. "Finished?" she says, without so much as skipping a beat.

Ginko looks between her and the man. It's all he can do to keep from asking the obvious question. "Yes, but--" He picks at the shirt awkwardly. "These clothes are…"

"A little too big for you," says Yuuko, looking amused. "But you'll grow into them."

"But I'd rather …" He looks between the two of them, then back down at the spare clothing. He feels excruciatingly tired all of a sudden, and he can't tell if that's because of the bath or because of the people. "Can I lie down?"

Yuuko's expression grows serious. "The boundary won't remain thin for much longer," she says. "If you stay the night, you'll be staying for a long time."

Ginko tries not to look disappointed. He's _very_ tired, and the thought of trudging all the way back to the village makes his feet hurt. Seeing his expression, the man chuckles. "He has a long way to go, doesn't he," he says, and Ginko gets the feeling that he's addressing Yuuko, not a certain tiny mushishi. He gets to his feet -- he's extremely tall, even taller than Yuuko -- and shrugs out of his green overcoat.

Before Ginko can say anything, the man drapes it over Ginko's shoulders. He squirms a little, working his arms into the sleeves. The coat is even worse than the clothes; he feels a little like he's wearing a pile of cloth. "But isn't this yours?" he says, looking up at the man.

"On loan from me," says Yuuko, once again looking quite amused with the situation. "He'll have to pay me back for it later." She emphasizes the word "pay" with a distinctly suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. "He had some of your wine as well."

_So that's three cups minimum_, thinks Ginko. He takes the bottle from the table and hefts it, feeling a little dismayed; he's not sure when he'll be able to get more. Well, no point in worrying about it now. He wraps the bottle in his new clothes and packs it deep inside his box. Once that's done, he hefts it back over his shoulders, staggering a bit from the weight. "How do I get home?"

"The same way you came," says Yuuko. She gestures, and Ginko notices the faint trail of mud left over from his arrival.

"Take care," says the man. His smile is much warmer than Yuuko's; a sun to her moon.

As Ginko winds his way back onto the darkened porch, he can hear Yuuko's voice behind him faintly. "You have a soft touch when it comes to children, Clow."

Clow's flickering laugh is the last thing Ginko hears before the house dissolves into forest.

---

Dusting, dusting, _dusting_. It's all Watanuki seems to do these days -- when he's not cooking, anyway, or catering to one of Yuuko-san's many (and endlessly ridiculous) whims.

"Watanukiiiiiii."

Speaking of which. "What does she want now?" he says, giving the top of the cabinet one last sweep before stepping down off the ladder. "I'm not starting dinner yet!" he yells back. "If you want something to eat that badly, there's leftovers in the refrigerator!"

"Awwww." Funny, he can almost hear her _pouting_. "Then bring me sake!"

Sake? In the middle of the day? _Again?_ Watanuki almost wishes he'd just made her a mid-afternoon snack and been done with it. He puts his duster down in the corner and coughs a little, trying not to sneeze from all the dust. "None of the dishes are clean yet!" he calls back. "You've already used all your sake cups!"

"Oh~?" Watanuki doesn't like the tone of that reply either. "Then you'll just have to bring the whole bottle, won't you?"

Oh no. If there's one thing Watanuki refuses to do today, it's deal with a hungover Yuuko-san before it's even time for dinner. "Y-Yuuko-san!" he says. "You can't just -- argh, I'll find you a cup! Give me a minute!"

"Find Yuuko-san a cup!" Maru's voice, distant but cheerful.

"Yuuko-san's cup should be found!" Moro's, similarly.

_Yuuko-san has to have one in here somewhere_, thinks Watanuki with a long-suffering sigh. He knows he's seen a full sake set or two here among all the junk Yuuko-san has saved up. He picks his way through the storeroom, opening boxes and cracking open cabinets. At last, he finds one. It's been wrapped in an extremely threadbare kimono, which is absolutely filthy from both mud and age. The cup is equally ancient; it's primitive earthenware, decorated only with a streak of red clay around its rim. _Is this really all right?_ he thinks, turning it over in his hand. _It looks a little…_

"Watanukiiiiii."

"A-alright, alright! I'm coming!" Cradling the little cup in both hands, he makes his way back to the front of the storage room and prepares to get his employer her wine.


End file.
